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When
I reached a blue office building [at domestic intelligence headquarters] in
Témara, I told a man on duty that I was looking for my son. The agent
replied politely that I must be mistaken, since it is the Judiciary Police and
not [the domestic intelligence agency] that arrests people. Besides, if my son
had done nothing wrong he would soon be free. “Stop looking for your
son,” he told me, “your son will contact you very soon.”

—Rachida Baroudi,
mother of Rida Benotmane, describing her effort to locate him after his arrest
by plainclothes officers.

Since Morocco suffered
its worst terrorist attack on May 16, 2003, and adopted 12 days later a
sweeping counterterrorism law, credible allegations have persisted that
security officers routinely violate international and domestic law in their
treatment of persons suspected of links to terrorism.

The alleged abuses follow
a pattern that starts when agents in plainclothes who show no ID or warrant detain
persons without explaining the basis for the arrest. Authorities then hold the suspects
in secret places of detention where many face ill-treatment or torture during
interrogation and are kept in garde à
vue (pre-arraignment) detention longer than the 12-day maximum
allowed by Morocco’s counterterrorism law, without their families ever
being notified. They are then handed over to the police, who present them with
a statement to sign, before they have seen a lawyer.

The courts have
generally failed to investigate allegations of such abuses when raised by the
defense, and have convicted defendants based largely on their contested “confessions”
to the police.

In 2004, Human Rights
Watch, Amnesty International, and the International Federation of Human Rights
published reports denouncing these practices in the handling of the more than
1,500 persons arrested during the months following the May 2003 bombings.[1] Moroccan
authorities responded at the time by promising to investigate. But the publicly
announced results of the investigations amounted to a denial of the allegations,
or at most, an admission of isolated cases of abuse.[2]

Arrests in
terrorism-related cases have declined since 2004, as have reports of abuse.
However, there has been little change in the types of mistreatment reported,
among the smaller numbers of persons being detained. In 2008, illegal
detentions constituted one of the main areas of concern at Morocco’s
Human Rights Advisory Council (ACHR), whose members are appointed by the king.
That year, according to the ACHR, illegal detention complaints comprised 26.83
percent of the complaints it received that fell within its mandate. The ACHR
observed:

Moroccan
law places detention under strict controls and gives the judiciary supervision
of it, including garde à vue detention. Thus
the existence of cases of detention in locations outside of the supervision of
the judiciary and outside of the legal provisions governing such places, even
if limited in extent, can only lead to the occurrence of human rights
violations that are unacceptable in an era that has turned the page on grave
human rights violations.[3]

This report details
cases of terrorism-related arrests between 2007 and 2010. Human Rights Watch
takes no position on the guilt or the innocence of those arrested. Our concern
is the pattern of abuses they experienced – arrests carried out in
violation of legal procedures and that resemble abductions; detention in secret
locations; placement in garde à vue detention beyond the 12-day limit
provided for in the 2003 law; and illegal delays in providing suspects access
to legal counsel. These abuses undermine the right of the accused to a fair
trial and make them more vulnerable to the torture and other ill-treatment that
many claim to have endured.

The persistence of
these practices undermines not only the rule of law but also the legacy of
Morocco’s Equity and Reconciliation Commission. That legacy depends not
only on the ERC’s groundbreaking contribution to exposing, acknowledging,
and making reparations for past abuses but also on whether Moroccan authorities
show the political will to heed the recommendations that the ERC made to
prevent and punish continuing abuses such as prolonged incommunicado detention
in unacknowledged detention centers.

Many Moroccan use the
terms “abduction” and “disappearance” to describe the
kind of detention this report describes, because suspects are usually taken
away by men in civilian clothing who show them neither an arrest warrant nor
proof of their own identity; the suspects are then often held without
notification to their families for days or weeks, in violation of Moroccan law.

In one important
aspect, the “disappearances” documented in this report differ from
those practiced by the Moroccan state in the 1960s through the 1990s, which the
ERC investigated. In the earlier period, hundreds of those who were abducted by
state agents “disappeared” forever and are presumed dead; hundreds
more resurfaced only years after their abduction. In the present pattern of
abductions, the “disappeared” person turns up within several weeks,
if not sooner.

But while the abuse
itself may be less grave, the disregard for the law by the security forces is
no less flagrant, especially in light of the tougher domestic laws that have
been put into place during the reign of Mohammed VI to safeguard against abuse.
To date, Moroccan authorities have largely failed to investigate the repeated
and credible allegations of violations of the laws governing the arrest and
detention in order to eradicate these practices and hold perpetrators
accountable. To our knowledge, no official has been held accountable, in cases
involving suspects held under the 2003 counterterrorism law, for conducting
illegal arrests, holding suspects in secret places of detention, physically
mistreating suspects during interrogation, or falsifying dates of arrest. Many
victims of such practices are currently serving long prison sentences, imposed
after unfair trials.

Detention at Témara?

Most of the subjects of
this report said that after being detained by plainclothes officers, they were
blindfolded while being transported to detention in a place whose name was
never spoken. Many inferred that they had ended up in Témara, a Rabat
suburb where the domestic intelligence agency is headquartered. They inferred
this from landmarks and signs they glimpsed on the road, and from the animal sounds
they said they heard coming from the national zoo that, until recently, was
located in that city. At this facility, according to their accounts, agents
threatened, insulted and assaulted them during interrogation. The assaults
included slaps, punches, and beatings on the soles of their feet. All were
eventually transferred to a recognized police station, at which point many of
their families first learned where they were. Some noticed that the arrest
reports noted an arrest date that coincided with their delivery to the police
station—and not with their initial detention by plainclothes officers–as
if their secret detention had never occurred.

Further allegations of
secret detention centers in Morocco have come from abroad in recent months. The
Associated Press reported in August 2010 that, according to several current and
former American officials, the US government possesses video and audio
recordings of Ramzi Binalshibh, an accused plotter of the September 11, 2001
attacks being interrogated in a secret prison in Morocco. The US officials told
the AP that the prison was run by Moroccans but largely financed by the CIA,
which in late 2002 handed Binalshibh over to Moroccan custody and kept him
there for five months.[4]
The Moroccan government has never acknowledged the facility's existence,
despite allegations by freed Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed and others that
the CIA relied on Morocco as a secret proxy detention site during the period
after September 11, 2001.

Recommendations
to the Government of Morocco

Human Rights Watch made many of
the following recommendations to the government of Morocco in its 2004 report, Morocco: Human Rights at the Crossroads.
The cases presented in the present report show the persistence of the abuses
documented in the earlier report and the continuing absence of political will
on the part of Moroccan authorities to remedy them.

To end torture and other forms
of ill-treatment, Morocco’s judiciary should:

Ensure that all allegations of torture and
ill-treatment, including the use of coercion and threats, be promptly and
independently investigated, and if credible evidence is found against law
enforcement officers, bring them to justice.

Strictly apply article 293 of the amended Penal
Procedure Code, which renders confessions made under “violence or
duress” inadmissible as evidence.

Enforce compliance with all Moroccan laws
governing garde à vue detention, by, among other things, opening
investigations wherever there is evidence that police or other state
agents may have held a suspect for any period outside a recognized place
of detention, willfully entered a false date of arrest into their registry
to cover up secret or illegally prolonged garde à vue detention,
denied a suspect access to a lawyer or failed to present him before a
judge within the time limits prescribed by law. Both investigating judges
and trial judges should, where warranted, weigh these due-process
violations in deciding whether “confessions” made under such
circumstances should be dismissed or discounted as evidence of guilt.

Moroccan authorities should
ensure that its law enforcement and intelligence agencies:

Ensure that any state agents, when taking a
person into custody, always provide that person with (1) proof of their
affiliation with an agency empowered to conduct arrests and (2) disclose
the basis for arresting that person.

Hold all detainees only in officially recognized
places of detention, and cease all secret detentions, even if they take
place on the premises of an officially recognized detention facility.

Hold arresting officers accountable for any
failure to inform the family promptly of the person’s arrest and
whereabouts, as per article 67 of the Penal Procedure Code.

Allow both national and international
nongovernmental human rights organizations access to all places of detention,
including any located in Témara.

Investigate complaints of irregularities during
arrest, interrogation, and garde à vue detention, including those
alleging: arrests by agents in plainclothes who show neither an arrest
warrant nor identification proving their status as agents of the Judiciary
Police to the arrested person, and who do not explain the reasons for his
or her arrest; detention in unacknowledged places of detention; failure to
inform the next of kin of the whereabouts and judicial status of a person
taken into custody; detention beyond the time limits allowed by law; denial
of access to a lawyer within the time frame provided by the law; and the
use of physical violence and threats to obtain confessions or to force a
signature on a police statement.

Make the findings of these investigations
publicly available.

When complaints are found to be warranted,
announce steps to hold accountable the responsible parties and to curtail any
illegal practices.

Morocco’s parliament
should:

Adopt legislation to shorten the maximum duration
of garde à vue (pre-arraignment) detention from the 12-day maximum
allowed under the 2003 counterterrorism law, and to allow more prompt
access to legal counsel. The legislation should conform to the United
Nations Human Rights Committee's determination, in interpreting the right
of suspects to hear the charges against them “promptly” under
article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
that a suspect must be brought before a judge or other officer authorized
to exercise judicial power within “a few days,” in order to
rule on the detention of the person. The legislation should give detainees
the right to a lawyer when they are first questioned by the police, and
ensure that police inform them of that right.

Accede to the
Optional Protocol of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT), which seeks to
prevent torture by establishing a system of regular inspections of places
of detention conducted both by international experts and a domestic
independent inspection body.

Ratify the
International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced
Disappearance.

The disappearance
convention, which Morocco played a constructive role in drafting, contains many
provisions designed to prevent secret detention and the abuses associated with
it. While Moroccan law already contains some of the provisions that the
convention calls on states to enact, ratifying the convention would create new
obligations and represent an expression of resolve to prevent not only enforced
disappearances but also illegal and secret detentions. The convention requires,
among other things, that states ensure that all persons are held only in
officially designated places of detention and that detainees may contact and
receive visits from relatives and lawyers. It requires that states guarantee
that persons deprived of liberty or persons acting on their behalf can petition
a court to decide “without delay” on the lawfulness of a
person’s detention and whether to order the person’s release. The
Convention also requires states to take the necessary measures to prevent and
impose sanctions for: delaying or obstructing access to court remedies when
sought by a detainee or other interested party seeking to challenge his detention;
failing to record the deprivation of liberty of any person, or the recording of
any information that the official responsible for the official register knew
or should have known to be inaccurate; and refusing to provide information on
the deprivation of liberty of a person, or the provision of inaccurate
information.

Introduction

The
Moroccan government faces a challenge in preventing and suppressing terrorism,
but officials have vowed to meet that challenge while respecting the
country’s domestic laws and its international human rights obligations.
For example, then-Prime Minister Driss Jettou said on July 5, 2004, “Moroccohas suffered the anguish ofterrorism. In cooperation with states
waging the same fight, we are committed to an uncompromising struggle while
making sure the only weapon used is that of the law.”[5]

Throughout the 1990s, Morocco watched nervously as its
neighbor, Algeria, was consumed by political violence involving Islamist
insurgent groups and state security forces. On August 24, 1994, suspected
Islamist militants invaded the Atlas Asni Hotel in Marrakesh and shot dead two
Spanish tourists.

Then on May 16, 2003,
Morocco suffered the worst terrorist attack in its modern history when five
coordinated suicide bombings in Casablanca killed 45 people, including 12 of
the assailants. Officials including then-Minister of Justice Mohamed
Bouzoubaâ said that the perpetrators belonged to two Islamist groups, Sirat al-Mustaqim, which means “the
righteous path” in Arabic, and Salafia
Jihadia, a loose alliance of militants in Morocco and other Maghreb
countries accused of links with Al Qaeda.[6]
Since then, Morocco has suffered a number of less dramatic terrorist incidents.
On March 11, 2007, a militant wearing an explosive device blew himself up in an
Internet café in Casablanca, killing only himself. On April 10, 2007,
three militants blew themselves up as the police closed in on them in
Casablanca. One police officer was killed in the operation, as was a fourth
suspected militant. On April 14, 2007, two suicide bombers blew themselves up
near the US cultural center and consulate in Casablanca.

Moroccan emigrés
have also been implicated in numerous terrorist networks and activities abroad.
A Spanish court convicted Moroccan nationals of playing a leading role in the
bombing of the Madrid commuter rail system on March 11, 2004, which killed 192
persons. The UN Security Council Committee 1267 has designated one of the
militant groups suspected of involvement in the attacks, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant
Group (MICG), as a terrorist organization affiliated with Al Qaeda.[7]

Iraqi and US forces
have arrested Moroccans in Iraq who presumably came to the country to join
foreign jihadist forces fighting there. According to a Washington Post article published on
February 20, 2007:

Moroccan authorities
said they have identified more than 50 volunteers who have gone to Iraq since
2003, and many more are believed to have made the journey undetected.…
Moroccan officials have tried to disrupt the recruiting networks in recent
months, arresting more than 50 people since November [2006].

"We have chosen to
be extremely vigilant," [then-] Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa said in
an interview in Rabat, the capital. "These cells all have international
connections. They can function because they certainly all have support,
especially in regard to training and in regard to logistics."[8]

Human Rights Watch condemns all acts of terrorism.
Indiscriminate attacks on civilians are the antithesis of human rights values,
and the Moroccan government, like all governments, has the duty to prevent such
crimes and to bring to justice those who perpetrate them. Counterterrorism
measures, however, must comply with Morocco's obligations under its own laws as
well as international human rights law. Individuals suspected of plotting or
carrying out acts of violence must be afforded their basic rights at all times.
Under no circumstances can a state derogate from its obligation to prohibit
torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Detention should not be
arbitrary and should be subject to judicial review. In addition, fundamental
fair trial standards must be respected.

Morocco passed a law in
2003 shortly after the Casablanca attacks, law No. 03-03 of 28 May 2003 on
Combating Terrorism (hereinafter Morocco’s counterterrorism law), which
includes an excessively broad definition of terrorism, reduces the rights of
suspects in cases alleged to be terrorism-related and stiffens penalties for
offenses classified as terrorist. The law states that specified acts can be
classified as terrorist when they “are deliberately perpetuated by an
individual, group or organization, where the main objective is to disrupt
public order by intimidation, force, violence, fear or terror.” The list
of acts includes theft, extortion, and the “praise of acts that
constitute terrorism offenses, be it by speech … or writings or printed
materials that are sold, distributed, or put on sale or on display in public
places or public meetings, or displaying it in a manner visible
to the public via the various means of audiovisual or electronic means of
information.”[9]

This definition has
been used to convict and imprison journalists who “incite violence”
as well as persons who post statements online praising those fighting the
American occupation in Iraq.[10]

The law lengthens to 12
days the maximum amount of time that the police can hold a suspect (an initial
four-day period, renewable twice upon written authorization from a prosecutor)
before presenting him or her to a judge.

The Rabat Court of
Appeals, located in Rabat’s sister city of Salé, has exclusive
nationwide jurisdiction to try in first instance persons facing charges under
the counterterrorism law. This is the court that tried all the defendants mentioned
in this report who have already been judged, and it is the court that will try
all those in pre-trial detention, if the state retains charges against them
under the counterterrorism law.

As noted, Morocco’s repressive counterterrorism
legislation raises human rights concerns. However, as this report shows, much of
the mistreatment of suspects detained under the counterterrorism law result not
from the application of this law but rather from the flouting by authorities of
its provisions, as well as the provisions of other domestic laws.

Methodology

This
report is based on interviews conducted between 2008 and 2010 with eight
Moroccan men detained in connection with the counterterrorism law, and with the
lawyers and relatives of these and other detainees. Researchers interviewed the
detainees by telephone, and their relatives and lawyers mostly in person in
Rabat and Casablanca, with follow-up by telephone and/or by email.

On September 13, 2010, Human
Rights Watch sent a five-page letter to Morocco’s minister of justice
(reprinted as Appendix 1) describing this report and its interim conclusions,
and soliciting information for inclusion in the report. This report contains a
response from the government of Morocco (reprinted as Appendix 4), received just
before publication.

Morocco has made legal commitments to prevent and
punish torture. In 1993, it ratified the United Nations Convention against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
(hereinafter the Convention against Torture). In 2006, it promulgated
amendments to its Penal Code prohibiting torture and bringing the code’s
definition of torture closer to the one found in the Convention against
Torture. The code, as revised, refers to:

any act that causes
severe physical or mental pain or suffering intentionally inflicted by a public
agent or upon his instigation or with his express or tacit consent, upon a
person for the purpose of intimidating or pressuring him or for pressuring a
third person, to obtain information or a confession, to punish him for an act
that he or a third party committed or is suspected of having committed, or when
such pain or suffering is inflicted for any other objective based on any form
of discrimination.[11]

Morocco’s Penal Procedure Code, article 293,
states that any confession obtained through “violence or coercion shall
not be considered as evidence” by the court. The article continues,
“The perpetrator of the violence or coercion shall be subject to the
penalties provided in the penal code.” This provision echoes article 15
of the Convention against Torture, which stipulates that states party to the
convention shall ensure that “any statement which is established to have
been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any
proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the
statement was made.”

In its report to the United Nations Committee against
Torture, Morocco stated:

A confession obtained
through the use of violence, coercion or torture has no value. Any confession
where a causal link between obtaining it and the use of such methods has been
established must be excluded. A court must look for such a link to reach a
decision on the inadmissibility of the confession… [T]his is intended to
protect the public interest and not the interest of the individual only.
Legislation goes even further by incriminating those who resort to coercion to
obtain confessions as a deterrent to committing acts violating human rights.[12]

On October 19, 2006, Morocco took the positive step of
lifting its reservation to article 20 of the Convention against Torture,
thereby recognizing the competence of the Committee against Torture to open an
investigation when, as per article 20, it “receives reliable information
which appears to it to contain well-founded indications that torture is being
systematically practiced” in its territory. Morocco recognized at the
same time the competence of the Committee against Torture, under article 22 of
the Convention, to receive and consider communications from or on behalf of
individuals who claim to be victims of a violation of the convention. Morocco
has not signed or ratified the Optional Protocol of the Convention against
Torture (OPCAT), which seeks to prevent torture by establishing a system of
regular inspections of places of detention conducted both by international
experts and a domestic independent inspection body.

Arrests
and Detentions in Disregard for the Law

This report examines
the cases of seven men who were arrested in March and April 2010 and who were
in pre-trial custody as the report went to print. All have alleged a number of
abuses by the security force agents who arrested them and kept them in custody.
These abuses, if confirmed, violate Morocco’s own laws and in many
instances, its obligations under international human rights treaties it has
signed.

Each of the seven men said he was arrested by
agents in plainclothes who produced neither a warrant for his arrest nor
identification proving their identity as agents of the Judiciary Police,
the sole agency empowered to make arrests. Each man said that the
arresting agents did not tell him the reason they were taking him into custody.
This would violate article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, which states, “Anyone who is
arrested shall be informed, at the time of arrest, of the reasons for his
arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against him.”

All
seven were held without prompt notification to their families, which
violates the requirement of Code of Penal Procedure (CPP), article 67,
that relatives be notified as soon as officials make a decision to place a
person in detention.[13]
The UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form
of Detention or Imprisonment provides in article 15 that, with certain
narrow exceptions, “communication of the detained or imprisoned
person with the outside world, and in particular his family or counsel,
shall not be denied for more
than a matter of days.”[14]

Six of the seven men said they were held in
incommunicado detention for longer than the 12 days that Moroccan law
provides for garde à vue detention.[15]
They are Abdelaziz Janah, Abderrahim Lahjouli, Mehdi Meliani, Salah
Nachat, Yassir Outmani, and Younes Zarli.

A garde à vue detention that exceeded
the 12-day legal limit would constitute a serious breach of Moroccan law and
further evidence of arbitrary detention. But even if it were respected, the
legal time limit of 12 days of detention without judicial review, first made
possible by the counterterrorism law of 2003, seems to violate Morocco's
obligations under international human rights law by failing to ensure that the
person deprived of liberty is brought promptly
before a judge (italics added). The International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) states in article 9(4), “Anyone who is deprived
of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings
before a court, in order that that court may decide without delay on the
lawfulness of his detention and order his release if the detention is not
lawful.”

International treaties do not specify
the time limit for such a judicial review. However, the UN Human Rights
Committee has stated that it must occur within "a few days" of the person's arrest, a formulation that
does not encompass a delay of 12 days (italics added).[16]

The six individuals
named above allege that state agents held them in a secret place of detention,
in violation of the stipulation in Moroccan law that “detention is
permitted only in prison establishments under the authority of the Ministry of
Justice.”[17]
The United Nations Body of Principles states in Principle 2, “Arrest,
detention or imprisonment shall only be carried out strictly in accordance with
the provisions of the law and by competent officials or persons authorized for
that purpose.” If in fact security forces other than the Judiciary Police
are holding suspects in places other than those administered by the Ministry of
Justice, this would constitute further evidence that these detentions are
arbitrary in nature.

All
seven men said they did not see a lawyer until well after their first four
days of detention, the limit set by Moroccan law,[18]
and they did so only after they had signed a statement prepared for them
by the police. The UN Body of Principles states in article 15 that except under exceptional circumstances,
“communication of the detained or imprisoned person with the outside
world, and in particular his family or counsel, shall not be denied for
more than a matter of days.”

Agents searched the homes of at least two of the
men – Anouar Aljabri and Abdelaziz Janah – and confiscated
items, without first obtaining the written permission of the residents or
showing a warrant signed by the prosecutor to search the premises, in
violation of articles 62.3 and 79 of the Code of Penal Procedure.

Under international human rights law, the right to a fair
trial requires access to a lawyer during detention, interrogation, and
preliminary investigation.Prompt
and regular access to a lawyer is an important safeguard against torture,
ill-treatment, coerced confessions, and other abuses.[19]The UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers states,
in article 7, “Governments shall further ensure that all persons arrested
or detained, with or without criminal charge, shall have prompt access to a
lawyer, and in any case not later than forty-eight hours from the time of
arrest or detention.”[20] One UN special rapporteur on torture recommended
that anyone who has been arrested “should be given access to legal
counsel no later than 24 hours after the arrest.”[21] His successor as special rapporteur stated that
“detainees must have a right of access to a lawyer from the outset of
detention, the lawyer must be present during the interrogation and the detainee
must have the right to talk to the lawyer in private.” [22]

Five of the seven
reported their interrogators physically abused them, which if true would
violate the prohibition of violence and of torture found in article 231 of
Morocco’s penal code.[23]
As a signatory to the Convention against Torture, Morocco is required
under articles 5 and 6 to investigate alleged acts that constitute torture
and, where the evidence warrants, to hold perpetrators accountable.

All seven claim that they signed the written
statement prepared for them by the police without reading it to check its
veracity, because the police prevented them from reading it or threatened
them if they refused to sign, or because they said they believed that they
would have no choice but to sign it. Moroccan law implies that signing a
statement prepared by the police must be voluntary.[24] Coercion to sign a self-incriminating statement
would constitute a violation of article 14.3(g) of the ICCPR, which states
that no one shall be “compelled to testify against himself or to
confess guilt.”

Most of the detainees featured in this report believe
they were held in Témara during their interrogations, though none could
provide evidence proving this. In any case, the testimony of six of the
detainees indicates that they were held incommunicado for up to five weeks in a
location unknown to them, where most say they were subjected to physical
violence during interrogation, before agents transferred them to a recognized
police station, at which point they were presented with written statements for
signature and their families were finally able to learn their whereabouts.

At this writing, the suspects in this case are still
under investigation by the investigating judge, who has yet to draw up official
charges. It is not yet possible for Human Rights Watch to obtain information
from the suspects’ lawyers about the case, because the law prevents them
from disclosing details while it is still in the investigative stage.

However, if confirmed, the abuses alleged by the
detainees constitute serious violations of Moroccan law and undermine the
credibility of any confessions obtained from the suspects subjected to these
practices, as well as the fairness of any trials in which the convictions were
based solely or predominantly on such confessions.

Secret
Detention, Allegedly by Domestic Intelligence

Despite Morocco’s legal and verbal commitments
to prevent torture and ill-treatment, there continue to be persistent and
consistent allegations about suspects who are suspected of links to terrorism being
tortured or ill-treated during secret detention.[25]
Moroccan prisons contain hundreds of persons convicted on terrorism charges
since the May 2003 attacks, a large portion of them convicted primarily on the
basis of written statements the police attribute to them and their
codefendants, according to Moroccan human rights lawyers.[26]
The lawyers allege, based on their clients’ accounts, that many of these
statements were obtained through torture or other abuse while detainees were
imprisoned at secret facilities, such as one believed to exist in
Témara, a suburb southwest of the capital city of Rabat. Témara
is home to the headquarters of Morocco’s domestic intelligence agency,
the General Directorate for the Surveillance of the Territory
(La Direction générale de la surveillance du
territoire, DGST), formerly the Directorate for the Surveillance of the
Territory (Direction de la surveillance du territoire, DST) and still commonly
referred to by those three initials.

Moroccan authorities have denied
that the DGST operates a detention site at Témara. “The era of secret detention centers [inMorocco]
is long gone,” the state news agency Maghreb Arabe Presse quoted then-Justice
Minister Mohamed Bouzoubaâ telling reporters in 2004.[27] Bouzoubaâ said there was a
recognized and official prison in Témara under the jurisdiction of the
Justice Ministry, like any other civilian prison.[28] It is not clear to
which facility Bouzoubaâ was referring. However, the Moroccan
nongovernmental organizations that have conducted regular visits to prisons
around the country state that they have never been invited to visit a prison in
Témara. And the mounting testimonies of terrorism suspects who say they
were detained in Témara suggest that the facility there is anything but
an ordinary prison.

Detainees who believe they were held in Témara
told Human Rights Watch that the plainclothes security agents who arrested them
covered their eyes in the car to prevent them from knowing their destination. They
made inferences about the destination from the time traveled from the place of
arrest to the place of detention, landmarks glimpsed en route through
blindfolds that did not fully impede vision, and sounds made by the animals at
the national zoo that, until recently, was located in Témara near the
detention facility.

The detainees said that after their period in secret
detention, agents transferred them to a regular police jail, such as the one at
the headquarters of the National Brigade of Judiciary Police (Brigade Nationale
de la Police Judiciaire, BNPJ) in the Maârif section of Casablanca.

At the regular police jail, agents presented for their
signature a written declaration (procès
verbal, or PV) purporting to be a faithful transcription of the
statement they gave orally to the police. In cases involving persons suspected
of links to terrorism, such as the detainees Human Rights Watch interviewed,
the police PVs do not mention the place where the detainees were held in secret
detention or the time they spent there, but, rather, are completed by the
police in such a way so as to suggest that the detainee was taken upon arrest
straight to the Judiciary Police. In addition, in numerous cases researched by
Human Rights Watch, the police do not inform relatives of the detainee’s
whereabouts until he or she has been transferred from secret detention to an
acknowledged facility, a period that can last several weeks. Human Rights Watch
heard credible allegations that the police falsify arrest dates in their
registries and PVs in order to cover up the period of illegal custody before
presenting a detainee to the investigating judge.[29]
Amnesty International also reported that arrest dates were falsified.[30]

Detention by the DGST?

Most of the cases cited in this report involve
detainees who reported to their lawyers and relatives that they believed that
they were held in the custody of officers of the DGST. If confirmed, this would
add to the ways in which their detention could be considered illegal under
Moroccan law, since the DGST is an agency that is not authorized by law to
arrest, detain, or question suspects.

Under Moroccan law, only security force personnel with
the status of Judiciary Police and acting under the supervision of the public
prosecutor are authorized to arrest, detain, or take and record initial
statements by suspects, and to conduct home searches.[31]
Moroccan authorities have stated repeatedly over the years that the DGST lacks
the status of Judiciary Police and thus has no authority to arrest or detain
suspects. The late Justice Minister Bouzoubaâ confirmed in 2003 that the
DST is not authorized to conduct such operations and denied the DST had
actually done so. In September 2003, he said the DST "doesn't have the
status of Judiciary Police. It is the Judiciary Police that investigates cases
submitted to it by the DST.”[32]

According to a 2004 joint statement from the
Ministries of Justice and Interior, the DGST is “assigned to look for and
to prevent, through the collection of intelligence, activities that are
inspired by, or undertaken or supported by subversive or terrorist
movements” and also has responsibility for counter-espionage. “But
in all cases, whether in combating terrorism or in counter-espionage,”
the 2004 statement notes, “it is agents of the Judiciary Police of the
National Security [Direction Générale de la Sûreté
Nationale, DGSN] who, on the basis of information gathered by the DGST, and under
the supervision of the prosecutor's office, carry out arrests of suspects and
bring them before the judiciary.”[33]

DGST personnel “actually lack the credentials of
officers of the Judiciary Police that would permit them to carry out arrests,
searches, seizures, or interrogations,” the statement continues.
“This does not, however, rule out the existence of cooperative relations
in the domain of information and intelligence, between the DGST and the
Judiciary Police, as is found throughout the world.”[34]

Again in 2009, Moroccan authorities denied that the
DGST arrests people, and also denied the existence of a detention facility at
DGST headquarters. Using the older, more familiar name of that agency, Morocco
in its report to the UN Committee against Torture, said,

In paragraph 5 (d), the
Committee expresses concerns about the role of the National Surveillance
Directorate (DST). It must be noted that staff members of this agency are not
Judiciary Police officers and do not act as such. The King’s representative
conducted a visit to the headquarters of the DST and reported on the visit. No
detention unit was found at the premises.[35]

Responding to a request for clarification from Human
Rights Watch, the Embassy of Morocco in Washington provided the following statement
on August 25, 2010:

The DGST employees do
not have the title of officers of the Judiciary Police nor do they act as
such…. It is worth noting that the general prosecutor to the Court of
Appeal in Rabat has visited the DGST Headquarters in Témara and
inspected all its facilities. His visit report concluded that there exists no
detention center there.[36]

The issue of secret
detention in Morocco took on international dimensions in August 2010, when the
Associated Press (AP) reported that, according to several current and former
American officials, the US government had video and audio recordings of an
interrogation of Ramzi Binalshibh, an accused plotter of the September 11, 2001
attacks, in a secret prison near the Moroccan capital of Rabat. The prison was
said to have been run by Moroccans but largely financed by the CIA, which
handed Binalshibh over to Moroccan custody in late 2002 and kept him there for
five months—the first of his three
trips through the Moroccan facility during his years in CIA custody, according
to the AP. “CIA spokesman George Little would not discuss
the Moroccan facility except to say agency officials ‘continue to
cooperate with inquiries into past counterterrorism practices.’ Moroccan
government officials did not respond to questions about Binalshibh and his time
in Morocco. The country has never acknowledged the existence of the detention
center,” the AP reported.[37]

Prior to
these revelations, other Guantanamo detainees, notably Binyam Mohamed, a
British citizen and a detainee at Guantanamo until 2009, alleged
that also in late 2002, the CIA had sent him to Morocco for interrogation and
torture.[38]

The
Cases of Seven Men Detained in March and April 2010

In April 2010, Moroccan newspapers, citing the state
news agency Maghreb Arabe Presse (MAP), reported that officials had announced
the dismantling of a terrorist network of 38 men in the cities of Casablanca,
Kenitra, and Berchid.[39]
The men were allegedly “preparing to carry out assassinations and acts of
sabotage inside the country, particularly against security agencies and foreign
interests in Morocco, sending Moroccans to the hotbeds of tension, especially
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia.”[40]
MAP reported that on May 6, the National Brigade of the Judiciary Police (BNPJ)
in Casablanca had turned over 38 individuals in their custody to the prosecutor
on suspicion of involvement in a terrorist network.[41]

The press reports did not include a full list of the
suspects. From the complaints of “kidnapping” and
“disappearance” that the suspects’ families submitted to
Moroccan human rights organizations[42] and interviews with some of the family members,
researchers identified and made phone contact with seven of the suspects who
provided accounts of their arrest and detention, and the names of their
co-accused.[43]

Abdelaziz Janah, 32, a merchant in Bouskoura-Chrarga, in
Casablanca’s southern suburbs, was detained on April 18, 2010. Wafae
Raji, Janah’s wife, told Human Rights Watch that around midnight, she and
her husband were awakened by loud knocking on their door. Janah rose to answer but by the time he arrived
at the landing, he found three men in plainclothes who had already entered
through an open skylight. Then a large number of men entered the house,
handcuffed him, and searched the premises. Janah told Human Rights Watch in a
telephone interview from Salé Prison, “At home, when the police
entered, they asked me where was Yassir Outmani [a co-accused in this case] and
Ali—I don’t remember his family name—were. I told them, ‘They are
not at my home.’ They asked me where I hid the money they had given me. I
answered that I don’t have any money at home. They also asked me where I
had hid explosives. They said that I had hosted Ali and Yassir for a week at my
house.” That night, the men in plainclothes confiscated from the home a
computer, some CDs, documents, and the keys to his car. Raji said that the men
did not show any arrest or search warrant or explain why or where they taking
her husband, but told her that he would be back in 30 minutes.

The next morning Raji discovered
that someone—she presumes the plainclothesmen or their associates—had
forced open the door of Janah’s olive oil store, which is adjacent to
their residence.

Mohamed Janah, Abdelaziz’s father, said he
contacted the police and the prosecutor’s office in Casablanca to inquire
about his missing son, but learned nothing. The family had no information on
Abdelaziz’s whereabouts until May 7, when a detainee in Salé
Prison called Mohamed to say that Abdelaziz was currently with him in prison.
On May 10, Mohamed went to Salé Prison and visited his son for the first
time.

Mohamed Janah said that Abdelaziz
told him that for nine days he had been interrogated and tortured while
detained in an individual cell in an unknown location. Abdelaziz said in a
telephone interview from Salé Prison, “When they were
interrogating me, they again accused me of hiding the two men in my house. I
answered that I don’t even know Ali and that Yassir and I have only a
business relationship, and that he spent only one night at my house, after
which I gave him a ride to visit the family of his fiancée.”[44]
Mohamed said that his son recounted how at this location he was blindfolded and
beaten with a wooden stick on his feet until he lost consciousness and required
medical care. In an article about the case, the Moroccan weekly magazine Nichan quotes Abdelaziz Janah saying that
his interrogators bound and beat his feet to the point where he lost sensation
in them and was unable to walk for three days.[45] After nine days at this location,
police held Janah for ten days at the headquarters of the National Brigade of
the Judiciary Police (BNPJ) in the Maârif neighborhood of Casablanca. The
police then presented Janah before an investigating judge, who remanded him to
pretrial detention in Salé Prison. Janah told Human Rights Watch in a
telephone interview that he signed the statement prepared for him by the police
at Maârif because he could not read well enough to understand it and
believed he had no real choice in the matter.[46]

Janah said that he did not see a lawyer during the two
and-a-half weeks he spent in custody before seeing a judge.[47]
This was not Janah’s first experience in detention, as the authorities
had detained and questioned him for seven days in 2003 before releasing him
without charge.[48]

Mehdi Meliani is a 22-year-old resident of Casablanca who attends
engineering school in the city of Mohammedia.

Abderrahman Meliani, Mehdi’s father, said in an
interview that his son went out to a mosque to pray on March 26, 2010 and never
came back. The father said that he filed a complaint with the
prosecutor’s office four days after his son’s disappearance but
never received a response. The police never came to the family home to inform
them of Mehdi’s whereabouts, to ask questions, or to conduct a search.

Mehdi Meliani said in a
telephone interview from Salé Prison that when he left a café
that day around noon or 12:30 p.m., four men wearing plainclothes approached
him in a car and asked him to come with them because someone had filed a
complaint against him for a bounced check. They said they were police but did
not provide ID to prove it and showed no warrant. Meliani said later that he
has no checkbook and thought at the time that the police had erred. He got into
their car, thinking they were going to the police station but discovered
instead that they were driving him out of Casablanca.

Forty days after Mehdi Meliani
“disappeared,” he called his family from Salé Prison. In an
interview he gave to Nichan magazine,
Meliani said that the men in plainclothes who drove him from Casablanca took
the highway toward Rabat, passing Mohammedia, Bouznika, and Skhirat—the
town on the coastal road before Témara—before blindfolding him.
This suggested to him that the destination was Témara.

Mehdi
told his father that he had been detained in Témara in an individual
cell.[49] Meliani said the interrogators there questioned
him but did not torture him, and promised that he would soon be released. He
told Human Rights Watch in a telephone interview from Salé Prison:

When
in Témara, I was asked about jihadism. I replied by asking them to
define the term. So they asked me if I like the jihadists. I answered simply
that I sympathize with those fighting the Jews in Palestine. Then they asked me
about Salah Nachat [a co-accused], and if he ever talked to me about jihadism
or asked me to join jihadists or to travel with him to Somalia. I answered that
the only relationship I have with Salah is that he is my cousin, and I have
never talked with him about any plan to travel. I don’t even have a
passport.[50]

Meliani told Human Rights Watch in a telephone
interview from prison that he was held from March 26 to April 26 in a secret
facility in what he presumed to be Témara, and from April 26 to May 6 in
the jail at the Maârif station of the Judiciary Police, after which he
saw an investigating judge, who remanded him to pre-trial detention in
Salé Prison.[51]

Younes Zarli, a Casablanca resident born in 1980, is married to an
Italian woman. He had planned to settle in Italy, but the Italian authorities
expelled him three times because, Zarli says, his two brothers are allegedly
connected to “terrorist groups.”[52]
On September 15, 2006, a Moroccan court had convicted Zarli himself of
terrorism-related activities and sentenced him to two years in prison, Amnesty
International reported. An appeals court lowered his sentence to ten months
because he was acquitted of most charges, with the exception of forging
documents and making false statements.[53]

Zohra Sahib, Zarli’s mother, said that on April
11, 2010, a man appeared outside their home and asked their house cleaner, who
was inside at the window, if Younes was at home. When the house cleaner
answered that he was at home, the man asked her to call him. Younes went out to
see who was asking about him. He did not return.

Zarli,
in a telephone interview from Salé Prison, said that co-accused Yassir
Outmani was the man who invited him out of his house on April 11 to talk. When
Outmani and Zarli had walked the short distance from Zarli’s home in the
Bernoussi neighborhood to the Avenue Harti, men in plainclothes intercepted
them and placed them into cars, without stating that they were police or providing
a warrant or a motive for their arrest, or revealing where they were taking
them.[54]

Younes Zarli told Human Rights Watch in a telephone
interview from Salé Prison that he suspects that Témara was his
destination because he could see a bit while en route from Casablanca since the
men in plainclothes had covered his head with his jacket rather than blindfolding
him. At one point, Zarli said, he glimpsed a yellow sign announcing New Avenue
Mohammed VI in Témara.

Zarli said that upon his arrival at Témara,
agents stripped him naked and beat him repeatedly as they questioned him. He
said they asked him about his relationship with Saïd Ziouani—another
detainee apparently considered to be part of the same group—and whether
Zarli had been planning to emigrate illegally to Europe and then to
Afghanistan. Zarli said that he had no need to emigrate illegally since he had
a visa valid for travel to Italy to attend his own appeals hearing against his
deportation from that country.

Zarli said he signed a statement that police drafted
for him on May 3, 2010, only after the police threatened to return him to
interrogation if he refused. He said he saw a lawyer for the first time only
after he signed the police statement, the day before he was presented to the investigating
judge.

Sahib said that her son told her when she visited him
in prison that he had spent 15 days in Témara and then 12 days in
custody at the Judiciary Police headquarters in Maârif, before being
remanded to Salé Prison.

Anouar Aljabri is a
Casablanca resident born in 1973.

Hind Aljabri, Anouar’s sister, told Human Rights
Watch that around 3:30 a.m. on April 29, 2010, she responded to a knock on
their door. When she opened it, nine men in plainclothes entered the house
without seeking permission. They said they were police but showed no
identification or warrant to search or arrest, and did not explain why they had
come. They asked for Aljabri, and when Hind indicated his room, they went over
and handcuffed him. They searched the room and confiscated cassettes, religious
books and papers, and left with Aljabri. Hind said that the men told her that
her brother had broken no laws and that they would free him after asking him
some questions. But it was not until May 7, nine days later, that the family
had news of Anouar, when they learned that he was in Salé Prison.

Aljabri told Human Rights Watch that he spent eight
days in Maârif police headquarters, where the police questioned him.
Anouar said that during interrogation the police slapped and insulted him each
time his answers displeased them. He also said that the agents threatened to
detain his mother if he did not cooperate. Anouar said, “I was asked if
[co-accused] Yassir Outmani helped me to set up a commercial project and I said
no. I was asked about [co-accused] Salah Nachat and if he had talked to me about
a plan to emigrate, and I denied this, too. I told them I had no relationship
with those guys.”

Aljabri said that he signed without
reading a statement prepared for him by the police at Maârif, without
reading it, before he was transferred to Salé Prison. Aljabri said he
signed it because it made no difference: in his view, it would contain what the
police wanted whether he signed or not. He said that he did not see a lawyer
during his time in pre-arraignment custody.

Aljabri added that he had previously been detained in
April 2002 in Syria for three months before Syrian authorities delivered him to
the Moroccan intelligence services, which took him to Témara in July 2002.
He knew that he was at Témara, he said, because he could hear lions
roaring at the nearby zoo, and also guns being fired at a shooting range.[55]
He said he spent seven months there before being released without charge.[56]

The police detained him again for nine days in May
2003 in Casablanca and then released him again without charge. In December
2005, Aljabri was arrested, convicted of membership in a terrorist group and
served a four-year sentence. He had been free only five months before his
latest arrest, in April 2010.

Yassir Outmani is a Casablanca resident and second-year law student born
in 1980.

In a telephone interview from Salé Prison,
Outmani said he was abducted on the bustling Avenue Harti in Casablanca on
April 11, 2010, after paying a visit to Younes Zarli, who lives nearby (see
above).

Outmani’s mother, Najat Bensaïd, said that the family had no information on his whereabouts until May
7, when they learned he was in Salé Prison. Bensaïd said she filed
no complaint because when she did so after her son’s previous arrest in
November 2005, she received no response. Yassir was convicted that year of
planning to fight in Iraq and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Outmani described events that occurred shortly before
his abduction:

I worked with a man named Ali Sejlmassi at his
pharmacy. One day the concierge told me that four persons had come the day
before and asked about Ali and me. Because I have been already detained, I knew
that they were police, so I didn’t return to work. My father went to the
police station, presented my ID, and asked if there was a warrant against me.
He was told that there was no warrant. So I knew that those who were looking
for me were with the intelligence service and not the police. When I was
abducted, they asked me about Ali and if I knew that he had sent money to
Afghanistan. I told them that during the period when Ali is accused of sending money
to Afghanistan—the summer of 2008—I was still in prison. They later
tried to tell me that I was trying to go into hiding to avoid the police, but I
replied that they could find me simply by coming to my address. They are
accusing me of funding terrorists: this is what I gathered from the questions
that the investigating judge asked me.[57]

Outmani told Human Rights Watch that the men who had
detained him drove him to Témara, which he said he recognized from having
previously been imprisoned there. Outmani said that this time he was confined
to an individual cell and that his interrogators beat him on his feet with a
chain encased in a plastic tube (a technique known as “al falaqa”),
suspended him by his limbs in the “airplane” position
(“tayara”), poured cold water on him with the air conditioner
running, and threatened to sodomize him with a bottle and to bring his sister
into the prison.

Outmani said police initially refused his request to
see a lawyer but then told him that they had called his attorney. But no lawyer
ever came to see him during his four weeks in pre-arraignment police custody,
he said.

After 16 days in secret detention, Outmani said he was
transferred to BNPJ headquarters in Maârif, where he spent 11 days.
Outmani, the son of a lawyer, said that the police in Maârif refused his
request to read the written statement they had prepared for his signature, so
he declined to sign it. Later that day, he said, they threatened to subject him
to practices that he said would “harm my dignity.” They told him
that even Moustapha Mouâtassim and Mohamed Amine Regala—leaders of
small political parties charged in “the Belliraj affair” (see
below)—had signed their own statements without reading them.[58]

The investigative judge sent Outmani to pre-trial
detention in Salé Prison.

Salah Nachat, 39 years old anda
resident of Mediouna, a suburb southeast of Casablanca, was detained on March
22, 2010, in front of his house. He told Human Rights Watch that four men in
plainclothes approached and one asked him if he owns a scooter. When he replied
that he did, they told him that someone he had hit while riding it had filed a
complaint, and so he must accompany them to the police station. He told them
that he had not ridden his scooter in more than a week and had never hit
anyone. They insisted and took him away in an unmarked car. They never showed
him a warrant or any identification.

Nachat said the men in plainclothes drove him to a
place he presumed was Témara, although he could not be sure because they
blindfolded him while en route. Nachat said he spent 36 days at this place. He
says that agents there beat him on the bottom of his feet with a hard object
(he is not sure whether it was wood or metal) until he lost consciousness.
During the interrogation, the agents asked Nachat about his relationship with
three men, including co-accused Boualem Rachid.[59]

After 36 days, the authorities transferred Nachat to
BNPJ headquarters in Maârif. Nachat spent 10 days in Maârif, where
he was questioned about co-accused Anouar Aljabri, among other topics. He
answered that he has a business relationship with him and nothing more. He also
told Human Rights Watch that the police brought Aljabri to confront him in
Maârif and the latter also stated that the relationship of the two men
was commercial only.

Nachat signed the statement prepared for him by the
police at Maârif. He said the police did not allow him to read it and he
was weak from having been deprived of food and sleep for many hours. Nachat
told Human Rights Watch that when he was sent from Maârif to his first
court appearance on May 6, he informed the investigating judge that he had
signed his police statement without reading it, and also that he had spent the
last 24 hours without sleep or food. He also said he told the investigating
judge that he had been detained in Témara. The judge placed him in
pretrial detention in Salé Prison. The following day his family learned
of his whereabouts for the first time since his arrest.[60]

Abderrahim Lahjouli is a Casablanca merchant who sells cases for compact
discs. Born in 1972, Lahjouli is married and the father of two children.

Lahjouli said in a
telephone interview from Salé Prison that while he was at work in the
Derb Ghalaf neighborhood on March 30, three men in plainclothes came to him and
asked him if his name was Lahjouli. Then they told him to put on his jacket and
bring his ID, explaining that they would question him for half an hour and then
let him go. Lahjouli said that the men never said they were police, but when
they asked him to bring ID he assumed they were police and wanted to talk to
him about the merchandise he sells.[61]

Lahjouli’s family said they
did not know anything about his whereabouts until May 7, when he called Brahim,
his brother, from Salé Prison. Lahjouli told his brother that he had
spent 28 days in Témara in an individual cell before being brought to
Maârif, where he spent 11 more days before being transferred to
Salé Prison. According to Brahim Lahjouli, Abderrahim said his
interrogators threatened but did not physically torture him.[62] Brahim said that his brother
reported that police accused him of failing to provide information to
authorities about a French citizen of Moroccan origin named Ahmed Sahnouni, whom
Moroccan authorities were reportedly seeking because of his links to this
alleged network.[63] On April 30, French authorities
arrested an Ahmed Sahnouni in Paris and charged him with recruiting jihadists
via the Internet to fight in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, Le Parisien reported.[64]

The seven accused men who spoke to Human Rights Watch claim
they belong to no terrorist cell and that they never met the majority of their
fellow suspects before they found themselves together in pretrial detention in
Salé Prison. They said they believed they were arrested because of links
with one or two of their co-accused. For example, Younes Zarli was accused of
helping fellow suspect Saïd Ziouani to emigrate illegally. Mehdi Meliani
is a cousin of fellow suspect Salah Nachat. Yassir Outmani worked with a
pharmacist accused of sending money to Afghanistan.

As this report went to press, the investigating judge
was still examining the case, and the suspects remained in pre-trial detention.
No trial date had been set.

Other
Cases Involving Allegations of Illegal Arrest and Detention

Other cases prosecuted since 2007 under the
counterterrorism law raise similar concerns about the arrest, detention, and
ill-treatment of suspects in ways that violate Moroccan law and the country’s
obligations under international human rights law.

The
Belliraj Affair

Several of the 35 defendants convicted on appeal on
July 16, 2010, in a mass terrorism case known as the “Belliraj
Affair” contend that they were tortured while being held for two or more
weeks in secret detention in Témara.[65] The Belliraj case was unique among mass terrorism
trials in Morocco because six political figures were among the defendants,
including senior figures in four political parties – three of them
moderate Islamist parties, and the fourth, a socialist party. The six political
figures are among the nearly 30 defendants who have been in detention since
their arrest in early 2008.

The six political figures, who include Moustapha
Mouâtassim and Mohamed Lamine Regala, president and spokesman,
respectively, of al-Badil al-Hadhari (The Civilized Alternative) party, were
neither placed in secret detention nor held beyond the legal time limit for
garde à vue. All six, however, contended that the police falsified the
written version of the statements they gave. The trial judges in the lower
court and appeals court gave no credence to their claims and convicted all of
the defendants. The appeals court sentenced five of the six political figures
to 10 years in prison and the last political figure to two years in prison for
alleged roles in a terrorist network that, according to the court, perpetrated
robberies, laundered money, forged documents, and imported arms for the purpose
of carrying out terrorist acts to destabilize and eventually overthrow the
state. After the appeals court confirmed their convictions, the defendants
filed suit before the country’s highest appeals tribunal, the Court of
Cassation. That appeal is pending.

Many of the Bellarij defendants who were not public
figures said that they had been held in secret detention and tortured or
ill-treated. For example, Abdelkadir Belliraj, the alleged ringleader, told the
court that authorities intercepted him on a street in Marrakesh at some point
in January 2008—and not on February 18 as the authorities
reported—and held him incommunicado for one month before bringing him
before a judge. The report of the investigating judge reflects Belliraj’s
statement that state agents abducted and tortured him.[66]
According to his wife, Rachida Hatti, after Belliraj’s abduction, the
family looked for him in hospitals and police stations without obtaining any
information about his whereabouts until February 18, when Moroccan authorities
announced his arrest.[67]
Belliraj, in a written letter he provided to his Belgian lawyer Vincent
Lurquin, said that his interrogators held him incommunicado, blindfolded, beat
him, hung him upside down by his feet, and submitted him to electric shocks.[68]

Belliraj’s allegations of torture take on
special gravity in light of the fact that his file contains, unusually, two
quite different statements to the police, bearing different dates. His first
statement does not mention the six political figures among his co-defendants,
whereas his second statement deeply implicates them in the alleged terror
organization. This raises the question of what happened to Belliraj while in
custody after he made his first statement that led him provide a second
statement offering such a different version of events. Despite this, the court
refused demands to investigate his allegations.

Belliraj, in his multiple appearances before the
investigating judge, gave inconsistent testimony, first proclaiming his
complete innocence and at a later date confirming key aspects of his own incriminating
police statements. During the trial phase months later, Belliraj proclaimed his
innocence again and stated that the police had threatened him against
retracting his confession before Investigating Judge Abdelkader Chentouf.
Belliraj said also that one of his alleged torturers was present in judge
Chentouf’s chambers when the judge questioned him about his statement.
Defense lawyer Abderrahim Jamâi asked the trial judge to summon judge
Chentouf to answer questions about this hearing, but the trial judge declined
to do so. The lower court sentenced Belliraj to life in prison, a sentence
affirmed on appeal.

Another defendant in the case, Mokhtar Loqman, claims
state agents abducted him and interrogated him at Témara. A merchant
born in 1958 and living with his family in Salé, Loqman left for work
around 9 a.m. on February 2, 2008, and did not come home as usual at the end of
the afternoon. For two-and-a-half weeks, his family visited hospitals and
filled out missing-person reports at police stations, to no avail, his wife,
Houriya Ameur, told Human Rights Watch in an interview outside the Salé
court.[69]
Only on February 18, 2008, when then-Minister of Interior Benmoussa announced
that a terror network had been dismantled and the names of those arrested
appeared on the Internet, did the family learn that Loqman had been detained.
He had never before been arrested, his wife said.

During family visits to Salé Prison beginning
on March 5, 2008, Loqman was able to tell his family what happened after his arrest.
He said that the arresting officers took him to the detention center in
Témara, according to Ameur. Loqman told his wife that state agents there
slapped and insulted him at the beginning of his detention, even before the
interrogation began. During questioning, he says, they administered electric
shocks to his body, causing him to faint. Finally, the police presented him
with a statement and told him that if wished to see his children he would have
to sign. He signed without reading the statement, his wife said. Loqman
repudiated his police statement before the investigating judge and once again
before the trial judge.

Another defendant in the case, Ahmed Khouchiâ, a
travel agent born in 1966 who had never been arrested, was apprehended by men
in plainclothes who did not identify themselves, near his home in the city of
Kenitra at 11:30 p.m. on January 27, 2008, according to his wife, Maymouna
al-Bosh. For three weeks his family did not know Khouchiâ’s
whereabouts. The family filed three missing-person reports before they learned
he had been arrested. According to what her husband later told her, al-Bosh
said, state agents blindfolded and beat him, and made him crouch for long
periods, and made threats concerning his wife. In the end, he signed the police
statement without reading it, he told her.[70]

Before the investigating judge in the trial of first
instance, Khouchiâ stated that the state agents had used
“violence”[71]
on him and that the contents of his police statement were false. Later, before
the trial judge, he once again repudiated his police confession and recounted
his abduction, incommunicado detention, and mistreatment while in custody.

The court of appeals confirmed the sentences of Loqman
and Khouchiâ to 15 and eight years in prison, respectively.

The
Denkir Group

Human Rights Watch also researched the cases of three
men detained in 2008 and convicted in January 2010 as part of an alleged
terrorist cell known as the “Denkir Group,” named after one of the
defendants. Authorities arrested a total of 38 suspects as alleged members of
the cell, most of whom reside in the northern cities of Tangier, Tetouan, and
Larache. The court found the defendants guilty of plotting to recruit Moroccans
and finance their travel to Iraq to fight the occupying US forces.

The lead suspect, Aziz Denkir, told Human Rights Watch
that plainclothes agents detained him on May 28, 2008, at around 11 a.m., at
his workplace in the city of Tetouan, in front of eyewitnesses. They
blindfolded and handcuffed him, he said, and drove him two or three hours to a
detention facility. There, he said, they stripped him, beat him, and threatened
to rape him. He remained blindfolded and thus unable to see his interrogators.
He was held in isolation and could not converse with other prisoners, though he
said he could hear the cries of persons he presumed were being tortured. He
believes he was held in Témara, for a period of five weeks, before being
transferred to Maârif police station in Casablanca, where the police presented
him with a statement to sign.

Denkir said the authorities did not inform his family
of his whereabouts until they transferred him to the Maârif police
station, but “since I’m a Salafist, they assumed I had been taken
to Témara.”[72]

Another of the defendants in the Denkir case,
Abdelkrim Hakkou, born on February 5, 1978, disappeared in his hometown of Aïn
Taoujdat, east of Meknes, on his way to work as a schoolteacher on May 16,
2008, according to his brothers, Ahmed and Mehdi Hakkou. No one saw the arrest,
but Hakkou’s bicycle was recovered on the side of the road. The family
sought information at police stations but none provided news of his
whereabouts. The family also contacted the Moroccan Association for Human
Rights and Human Rights Watch, both of which wrote to Moroccan authorities
asking about Abdelkrim.

The family only learned where Abdelkrim was when the
Moroccan press reported the dismantling of a terrorist network in early July
2008, seven weeks after Hakkou’s disappearance. They subsequently learned
that the investigating judge had remanded Hakkou to pre-trial detention in
Salé Prison. When they visited him there, he told them he had been
abducted and driven to Témara, where, he told his family, he spent 47
days and was tortured, before being transferred to the Maârif police
station. The police at Maârif presented him with a statement that he
reportedly refused to sign.[73]

One reason Abdelkrim Hakkou believes that
Témara was his destination is that the men who detained him drove him on
the highway from Aïn Taoujdat to the Rabat-Salé tollbooth before
blindfolding him, his brother Mehdi said. Abdelkrim estimates they drove 20
minutes more before reaching their destination, a time period consistent with
the drive to Témara.[74]

The Ministry of Justice, responding to an inquiry from
Human Rights Watch, wrote that police arrested Hakkou not in May but rather on
July 1, and that the Judiciary Police held him and presented him to court on
July 11—that is, within the 12-day limit specified by the counterterrorism
law. The letter stated that Hakkou was being investigated for “forming a
criminal band for the purpose of preparing and carrying out acts of terrorism…
collecting and managing of funds for the purpose of financing the perpetration
of terrorist acts and to recruit others for this purpose; holding public
meetings without prior authorization and carrying out activities on behalf of
an unauthorized association.”[75]

Anas Lakhnichi went missing on May 18, 2008. A student
from Larache who was attending the National Institute for the Post and
Telecommunications in Rabat, Lakhnichi was en route that day to apply for an internship
in the city of al-Jadida, southwest of Casablanca. When he did not arrive at
home and did not answer his cell phone, his father, Allal Lakhnichi, began looking
for him. Allal filed a missing-person report with the Rabat police on May 20,
2008 and persuaded Morocco’s television channel 2M to air a notice on its
television show “The Missing” (“Mokhtafoun”).
The authorities provided no information on Lakhnichi’s whereabouts until
an article in es-Sabah daily
newspaper on July 1, 2008, described the breakup of a “terrorist
network” and named Lakhnichi as one of the suspects.

Lakhnichi told his father during a visit to
Salé Prison, where Lakhnichi had been placed in pre-trial detention,
that men in plainclothes arrested him on May 18. They covered his eyes, he
said, and then transported him to a place he believes was Témara. He was
held there in isolation and interrogated, and eventually transferred to Maârif
police station for about 10 days before being presented to a judge in July.
According to Allal Lakhnichi, his son said his interrogators slapped him
repeatedly, tore out his hair, and forced him to sign his police statement.[76]

Rabat-based lawyer Khalil al-Idrissi, who defended
both Hakkou and Lakhnichi, said that his clients described to the investigating
judge the ill-treatment they endured while under interrogation. The minutes of
the session reflect their allegations. However, Idrissi said, the court did not
investigate them.[77]

On January 28, 2010, the Rabat Court of Appeals issued
its verdict, sentencing Denkir to ten years in prison and Lakhnichi and Hakkou
to eight years in prison each, for involvement in an Islamist terrorist cell
aiming to send Moroccans to fight abroad. The court sentenced 30 of their
co-defendants to prison terms, one of them suspended, and acquitted five others,
according to the state news agency.[78]
On June 28, 2010, a court of appeals reduced the prison terms of some of the
defendants, including Lakhnichi and Hakkou, whose terms were reduced to six
years apiece.

Rida Benotmane: Secret Detention and Four Years in
Prison for Online Commentaries

Rida Benotmane endured a relatively short secret
detention of only two days, perhaps because he readily admitted to his
interrogators the basic accusations against him, which centered on comments
that he posted online, rather than his implication in any alleged terrorist
network or acts.

On January 20, 2007, Benotmane, a civil servant born
in 1976, was with his pregnant wife and 18-month-old daughter in their
apartment in Témara when men in plainclothes came to the door. The men
said that they were police but showed no warrant to arrest or search, according
to Benotmane’s mother, Rachida Baroudi, who learned what happened from
her son and daughter-in-law. They handcuffed Benotmane and searched the
apartment, confiscating his computer, passport, and cell phone, said
Baroudi.

Baroudi, who lives in Rabat-Agdal and is a high school
teacher, said her husband, a law professor at the University of Rabat, searched
the police stations during the night but could find no trace of their son. The
family concluded that since he had not been taken to a nearby police station,
he must be with the DGST in Témara because, they reasoned, that is
where the authorities take persons they detain in this manner.

The following morning, a Sunday, Baroudi drove toward
DGST headquarters in Témara. “When I reached a blue office
building in Témara, I told a man on duty that I was looking for my son.
The agent replied politely that I must be mistaken, since it is the Judiciary
Police and not the DGST that arrests people. Besides, if my son had done
nothing wrong he would soon be free. “Stop looking for your son,”
he told me, “your son will contact you very soon.” Baroudi left.

It was not until Tuesday, January 23, 2007, that the
police phoned the family to inform them that Benotmane was at Maârif in
Casablanca, and that they could come the next day to visit him. In this case, the
family received information about Benotmane’s whereabouts three days
after his arrest, in contrast to other cases described in this report, where
the family had no confirmation for two or more weeks. Both cases seem to
violate article 67 of the Code of Penal Procedure, which states, “The
Judiciary Police officer shall notify the family of the detainee as soon as a decision to place him/her
under custody is made…” (italics added)

When Baroudi arrived at Maârif on January 24,
she found that the police log recorded Benotmane as having arrived there on
Monday, January 22, at 9:30 p.m., a time and date that leaves the first two
days of his detention unaccounted for.

It was during those two days that Benotmane says he
was detained at the secret facility at Témara, before being transferred
to Maârif. He has no proof he was at Témara, but presumes that to
be the case based on the short travel time from his home in the town of
Témara to the place of detention, and the fact that after his arrest his
parents contacted police stations near his home and found no trace of him.

According to what Benotmane later told his mother, on
the night of his arrest the men who detained him blindfolded him in their car;
he was kept blindfolded almost the entire two days that he spent in secret
detention. Benotmane told his mother that in his first place of detention, his
interrogators accused him of visiting pro-Al Qaeda websites, which he admitted.
He gave them his passwords and they apparently researched his online
activities, Baroudi said. They questioned him about those activities, his
acquaintances, and his political and religious beliefs. He said that the
agents did not hit or abuse him physically but prevented him from sleeping and
threatened to throw him in a place filled with snakes and to detain his wife,
Baroudi said. He said he was handcuffed and held in isolation for the duration
of his secret detention and prevented from crossing paths with other detainees.

At Maârif police station, the Judiciary Police
presented him with a statement to sign in which he confessed to writing in
online chat rooms in support of the armed resistance to the US occupation of
Iraq, and to virulently denouncing Moroccan foreign policy as subservient
to US interests.

Benotmane acknowledges that the foregoing
portions of the statement he signed are true but insists that he did no more
than peacefully express his political views.

His signed police statement contains assertions that
he later repudiated. The statement suggests that Benotmane put online
photographs of the US and French embassies alongside a caption describing them
as buildings whose destruction Muslims fervently wished for; and that he called
the king a “tyrant” against Islam. Benotmane maintained later that
these last statements had been posted not by him but by other contributors to
the same websites where he posted. He explained that he had signed the police
statement because officers had threatened and pressured him, and because his
two days in secret detention had exhausted and disoriented him.[79]

After Benotmane’s detention
in Maârif, the police presented him to the investigating judge, who
remanded him to Salé Prison, where he remained in pre-trial detention.
On May 18, 2007, the Rabat Appeals Court convicted Benotmane of having “praised
terrorism” (article 218.2 of the Penal Code, as amended by the 2003
counterterrorism law) and for having committed “an offense toward the
person of the king” pursuant to article 179 of the Penal Code. (The
court’s judgment also refers to his “attacks on sacred
values.”) On appeal, the Rabat Appeals Court upheld his conviction and
doubled his sentence to four years in prison. Benotmane is currently serving
his term in Salé Prison and is due to be released in January 2011.

Continuing
Abuses and the Failure to Implement Recommendations of Morocco’s Equity
and Reconciliation Commission

The abuses described in this report continue at a time
of continuing debate over the legacy of Morocco’s Equity and
Reconciliation Commission (ERC). The commission prepared a final report after
two years of investigating the serious human rights violations perpetrated by
the Moroccan state between independence in 1956 and the accession to the throne
of the current king in 1999. As part of its report, the ERC offered a series of
forward-looking recommendations intended “to guarantee the non-repetition
of serious human rights violations and to consolidate the reform process in
which the country is engaged,” notably in the realms of “constitutional
reforms [and] the implementation of a national strategy to combat
impunity.”[80]
The ERC’s recommendations included:

“The consolidation of constitutional
guarantees of human rights, notably by inscribing the principle of the
primacy of international human rights law over domestic law, the
presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial….

“A constitutional prohibition of any
involvement by the executive branch in the functioning of the judiciary
branch.”

“The prohibition of enforced
disappearances, arbitrary detention, genocide, and other crimes against
humanity, torture and all forms of treatment and punishments that are
cruel, inhumane, or degrading….”

“The adoption and implementation of an
integrated national strategy to combat impunity” by, among other
things, “making it incumbent on all civilian and military personnel
responsible for applying the law to report any information concerning the
aforementioned crimes, regardless of the authority responsible for
ordering them to be carried out’” and “reinforcing in a
significant manner the protection of the rights of victims and the
remedies available to them.”

The ERC went on to state that “consolidating the
rule of law requires moreover reforms in the realm of security, justice,
legislation and penal policies.” It said that reforming the security
apparatuses meant “revising, clarifying and publishing the reglementary
texts regarding the authority, the organization, the decision-making process,
the modes of operation and the systems of oversight and of evaluating all
security and intelligence agencies without exception, as well as the
administrative authorities charged with maintaining the public order and having
the power to resort to the use of public force.”

King Mohammed VI accepted the ERC’s final
report, along with its recommendations on January 6, 2006. On that occasion he
declared, “We must all draw the right lessons in order to
equip ourselves with the necessary guarantees to prevent the repetition of
certain gaps and to fill certain past gaps. That said, what is most important
is to adopt a prospective and constructive approach toward the
future…”[81]

Some human rights organizations and journalists have
criticized Moroccan authorities for not yet implementing many of the legal,
administrative, and constitutional reforms that the ERC recommended to prevent
serious abuses in the future, and for the persistence of serious abuses despite
all the ERC-inspired discourse about “turning the page.”[82]

The perpetuation of serious abuses with impunity
undermines not only the rule of law but also the legacy of the ERC. That legacy
depends not only on the ERC’s groundbreaking contribution to exposing,
acknowledging, and making reparations for past abuses but also on whether
Moroccan authorities show the political will to heed the recommendations that
the ERC made to prevent and punish serious abuses, such as the continuing
pattern of prolonged incommunicado detention in unacknowledged detention
centers.

Acknowledgments

Eric Goldstein, research director of the Middle East and
North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, and Brahim Alansari, a
consultant to Human Rights Watch, researched and wrote this report. Joe Stork,
deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division, and Letta Tayler,
researcher in the Terrorism/ Counterterrorism division, edited this report.
Clive Baldwin, senior legal advisor at Human Rights Watch, and Robin Shulman,
consultant to the Program Office, reviewed this report. Intern Mariam Ben
Ghaith provided research assistance. Adam Coogle, associate in the Middle East
and North Africa division, provided production assistance. Publications Director
Grace Choi and Mail Manager Fitzroy Hepkins prepared the report for
publication.

Human Rights Watch, the international human rights
monitoring organization, is preparing a report on the arrests by Moroccan
security services of terrorism suspects. We have collected interviews that
indicate a pattern in which the security services arrest persons without
warrants, place them in apparently secret places of detention, do not inform
the families of their whereabouts, and often fail to present the suspect to a
judge within 12 days of their arrest. As you know, such practices would violate
Moroccan laws designed to protect the rights of persons in custody.

The purpose of this letter is to present you with some
of the cases we have researched and to invite your government to respond. We
will reflect in the forthcoming report any pertinent information or
observations that we receive from you or other Moroccan officials by October 4,
2010.

We have already received some pertinent information from
Moroccan authorities. The Embassy of Morocco in Washington sent to us the
attached statement, in response to questions we submitted about whether the
Direction Générale de la Surveillance du Territoire (DGST) had
the status of the Judiciary Police under Moroccan law, and about whether there
exists in Témara a detention facility administered by the DGST. We will
reprint this statement as an appendix to our report, along with the attached
letter, dated October 10, 2008, that your ministry sent us in response to our
inquiry about the detention of terrorism suspect Abdelkrim Hakkou, whose
whereabouts were unknown to his family during six weeks that year. We will
reflect in our report any additional pertinent information that you furnish us
by the above-mentioned date.

Our draft report takes as a case study a group of
suspects held in connection with a suspected terrorist network whose
dismantling was announced by the Maghreb Arabe Presse state news agency on May
6, 2010. According to the MAP, the National Brigade of the Judiciary Police
(Brigade Nationale de la Police Judiciaire, BNPJ) in Casablanca had turned over
38 individuals to the prosecutor at the Rabat Court of Appeals on suspicion of
involvement in that network (« Rabat: Trente-huit
présumés terroristes déférés devant le
procureur général du Roi, » http://www.map.ma/fr/sections/memomap/rabat__trente-huit_p/view).

Human Rights Watch identified the suspects through
press reports and through complaints of “kidnapping” and
“disappearance” that the suspects’ families submitted to
Moroccan human rights organizations. We then obtained information from seven of
the suspects and their families: Abderrahim Lahjouli, Anouar Aljabri, Mehdi
Meliani, Younes Zarli, and Yassir Outmani, all of Casablanca, Abdelaziz Janah
of Bouskoura-Chraga, and Salah Nachat of Mediouna. The seven men are currently
in provisional detention in Salé Prison as investigating judge
Abdelkader Chentouf of the Rabat Court of Appeals pursues his investigation of
the case.

According to the information that the defendants or
their families provided us:

All seven men
were arrested by plainclothes agents who produced no arrest warrant nor
identification proving their status as judiciary police, and who did not
explain the basis for the arrest;

All seven were
held without their families being promptly notified, which would violate
CPP article 67;

Although
article 66 of the Code of Penal Procedure gives detainees in custody the
right to request a lawyer after the first extension of their garde a vue
detention – that is after the first four days -- none of the seven
men saw a lawyer until much later in their period of detention, and did so
only after they had already signed their statements that the police
prepared for them;

All seven claim that they
signed the written statement prepared for them by the police without reading it
to check its veracity, either because the police prevented them from reading it
or threatened them if they refused to sign, or because they said they believed
that they would have no choice but to sign it. Moroccan law implies that signing
one’s statement is voluntary: article 67 of the CPP states that
“the concerned person must affix to these statements his signature or
fingerprint; if he refuses or is unable to do so, this must be indicated, along
with an explanation of the reasons for this refusal or inability;”

Six of the seven --
Abdelaziz Janah, Abderrahim Lahjouli, Mehdi Meliani, Salah Nachat,Yassir
Outmani, Younes Zarli – claim that the police held them in garde
à vue (pre-arraignment) detention for longer than the 12 days
allowed by Law No. 03-03 of 28 May 2003 on Combating Terrorism, article
66, fourth paragraph; and that the police held them in a secret place of
detention for part of that period, in apparent violation of CPP article
608.

According to the information provided by those six
defendants or their families, the circumstances of their pre-arraignment
detention were as follows:

Abdelaziz
Janah: arrested April 18 and held in an unknown location for 9 days and
then 10 days in Maârif BNPJ station;

Abderahim
Lahjouli: arrested March 30, held 28 days allegedly in Témara, then
11 days at the Maârif BNPJ station;

Mehdi Meliani:
arrested March 26, held 32 days allegedly in Témara; then on April
26 transferred to the Maârif BNPJ station, and then on May 6 to
Salé Prison; on May 7 his family first learned his whereabouts;

Salah Nachat:
arrested March 22, held 36 days in an unknown place, then on April 26
transferred to the Maârif BNPJ station where he was held for 10
days, and then on May 6 to Salé Prison; on May 7 his family first learned
of his whereabouts;

Yassir
Outmani: arrested April 11, held 18 days allegedly in Temara, then 11 days
in Maârif BNPJ station; and

Younes Zarli,
arrested April 11, held 15 days allegedly in Temara, then 12 days at the
Maârif BNPJ station.

Furthermore, five of the seven -- Janah, Meliani,
Nachat, Outmani and Zarli -- reported that their interrogators physically
abused them, which if true would violate the prohibition of violence and of
torture found in article 231 of Morocco’s penal code.

Of course, these and other detainees who believe they
were held in secret detention in Témara cannot prove it. The
plainclothes security agents who arrested them took a number of steps to
prevent them from identifying the detention facility to which they had been transported,
the detainees explained. They described how the police blindfolded them while
en route to the secret center, and how they were ultimately transferred from
that center to a regular police jail, in the above-mentioned cases the one at
BNPJ headquarters in Maârif. Although former detainees cannot know with
certainty that they were being held at Témara, many said they inferred
this from circumstantial evidence, including the time traveled from the place
of arrest to the place of detention, landmarks glimpsed en route through
blindfolds that did not fully impede their vision, and the sounds made by the
animals at the national zoo that, until recently, was located in Témara.

When detainees are in the
Judiciary Police’s detention facility, agents present them for their
signature a written declaration (procès
verbal, or PV)
purporting to be a faithful transcription of the statement they gave orally to
the police. Our examination of police PVs
in other terrorism cases points to discrepancies between the way these PVs account for the period of
pre-arraignment detention and the accounts given by the detainees themselves.
If the testimonies of the detainees are true, then the discrepancies seem to be
the result of the police having falsified the date of arrest and omitting to
mention the period and place of secret detention, so as to suggest that the
detainee was taken by his arresting officers directly to a recognized place of
detention and then brought before a judge within the 12-day limit. For example,
Abdelkrim Hakkou claims to have been taken into custody on May 16, 2008 and
held for 47 days in Témara before being transferred to the BNPJ police
station in Maârif. This contrasts with the information that your ministry
provided us, according to which Hakkou “was arrested and placed in garde
à vue on July 1, 2008, in a place belonging to National Security, in
conformity with the law,” and presented to the prosecutor on July 11,
2008.

Such allegations about arrest and detention practices
involving terrorism suspects, if true, amount to a series of violations of
Moroccan law and in some cases of Morocco’s obligations under
international law. These laws and obligations are intended to safeguard against
torture and ill-treatment of persons in custody. They also seek to protect
defendants from the resort to improper means of coercion to extract
confessions, which would violate their right to a fair trial if such coerced
confessions were used against them in court.

We welcome from you any facts pertaining to the
specific allegations made by each of the above-named defendants concerning
irregularities in the handling of their arrests and period of custody,
including arrests executed without warrants, detention and ill-treatment in
unacknowledged places of detention, detention beyond the 12-day limit provided
by law, failure to inform families promptly of their detention, and failure to
ensure timely access to legal counsel.

We would also welcome more general information about
the mechanisms Morocco has in place to ensure that security forces in
conducting arrests of terrorism suspects respect national law by

(1)showing a legal arrest warrant
before taking a person into custody;

(2)informing the family promptly
when placing a relative in custody;

(3)holding suspects in their
custody only in recognized places of detention;

(4)providing detainees access to
legal counsel beginning after the first extension of their garde a vue
detention; and

(5)ensuring that the police
records in the court files accurately reflect the times and places of detention
for the entire period that a person spent in pre-arraignment custody.

Finally, we wish to formally request that you allow
Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations to visit DGST
headquarters in Témara. We intend to mention in our report the statement
your embassy provided us to the effect that the General Prosecutor at the Court
of Appeal in Rabat inspected DGST Headquarters and concluded that it houses no
detention center. However, given the persistence for many years now of accounts
from persons detained in terrorism cases who say they were transported to
Témara and held there, we believe that providing access to Témara
for the first time to independent human rights organizations would only enhance
the credibility of the government’s position on the matter.

We would be happy to come to Rabat at any time to
discuss these matters with you in person. In any event, our forthcoming report
will reflect any pertinent information you provide to us by October 4.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely yours,

Sarah Leah Whitson

Executive Director

Middle East and North Africa division

Appendix
2: Moroccan authorities’ response to a request by Human Rights Watch for
clarification of the status of the DGST

(Received
by Human Rights Watch August 25, 2010)

The General Directorate of Territorial Surveillance
(Direction Générale de la Surveillance du Territoire, DGST) is an
intelligence agency in charge of protecting and preserving the security of the
State and its institutions. Its internal statute, operating system and
attributions do not differ from those of similar agencies around the world. The
Agency’s Headquarters is located in Temara and has regional offices under
its direct authority. Its mission is to investigate and analyze relevant
intelligence and prevent all activities initiated, conducted or supported by
subversive movements.

The DGST employees do not have the title of officers
of the Judiciary Police nor do they act as such. Consequently, they are never
asked to conduct any judicial discovery, nor has it ever been proven that they
drafted any judicial minutes on terrorism or any other issues. Their job is
limited to notifying the public prosecutor’s Office about crimes reported
to them as other civil servants and State agents do in accordance with the
provisions of article 42 of the Penal Code.

It is worth noting that the General Prosecutor to the
Court of Appeal in Rabat has visited the DGST Headquarters in Temara and
inspected all its facilities. His visit report concluded that there exists no
detention center there.

Appendix
3A: Letter from Ministry of Justice in response to inquiry concerning the
alleged abduction of Abdelkrim Hakkou (French original)

Appendix
3B: Letter from Ministry of Justice in response to inquiry concerning the
alleged abduction of Abdelkrim Hakou
(English translation)

(Translation by Human Rights Watch)

To Mr. Eric
Goldstein, Human Rights Watch

Re: The case of
Abdelkrim Hakkou

E-mail of September
24, 2008 addressed to Mr. Ali Bargach

Sir :

I am pleased to provide you with answers concerning
the case of Mr. Abdelkrim Hakkou, whose file you submitted at our meeting on
June 17, 2008.

Upon receiving a complaint filed by the family of Mr.
Abdelkrim Hakkou about his supposed disappearance or kidnapping, the Ministry
of Justice immediately launched an inquiry that concluded that the person was
the victim neither of a disappearance nor of a kidnapping. Rather, he was
arrested and placed in pre-arraignment detention on July 1, 2008, in a location
that is under the auspices of National Security, pursuant to the law.
This is what the family was told in letter 3/2391 of July 22, 2008.

Regarding Mr. Hakkou’s supposed illegal
confinement in the Center of Témara, which is under the auspices of the
Direction of the Surveillance of the Territory (DST), in fact he was presented
to the general crown prosecutor at the Rabat Appeals Court on July 11, 2008,
pursuant to a report prepared by the National Brigade of the Judiciary Police,
after his period of pre-arraignment detention was renewed twice with the
approval of the general prosecutor and after his family was notified.

It is worth noting in this respect that the period of
pre-arraignment detention is 96 hours, subject to two renewals upon written
authorization from the general crown prosecutor (article 66 of the Code of
Penal Procedure).

The provisions of the Code of Penal Procedure
pertaining to pre-arraignment detention and the provisions of the Penal Code
that define the crimes of kidnapping and illegal confinement are consistent
with the criteria contained in the relevant international conventions.
Moreover, the National Brigade of the Judiciary Police, which led the
investigation in this case, operates under the auspices of the General
Directorate of National Security (DGSN), and its officers act under the
authority of the prosecutor’s office, and DGSN officers are subject to
its oversight.

It may be worth pointing out that Morocco’s
security services arrested 35 persons, members of a Salafia Jihadia cell, in
Tangiers, Tetouan, Larache, and Oujda, the activity of which consisted of
recruiting youths to carry out terrorist suicide operations or to reach camps
in Iraq in pursuit of those same objectives and for training in this domain.

Mr. Hakkou was presented to the investigating judge on
accusation of forming a criminal band for the purpose of preparing and carrying
out acts of terrorism as part of a group effort to inflict serious harm on the
public order; collecting and managing funds for the purpose of financing the
perpetration of terrorist acts and for recruiting others for this purpose; holding
public meetings without prior authorization and carrying out activities on
behalf of an unauthorized association.

After the investigating judge questioned him, Hakkou
was placed in detention in the Civil Prison of Salé, in strict
conformity with the law, which guarantees to him all the rights enjoyed by
detainees.

As for any other question that Mr. Abdelkrim HAKKOU
wishes to raise and receive a response to, he can contact the court handling
his case, which is the only body empowered to look into the matter.

Please accept my respectful consideration.

Secretary General

Mohammed
LIDIDI

Appendix
4: Response of the Government of Morocco to Human Rights Watch Letter sent
September 13, 2010

(Received
by Human Rights Watch October 18, 2010)

This is the complete text of the Moroccan government's
response to HRW's letter of September, 13 2010, except for two phrases in the
first two paragraphs where HRW deleted the names of suspects who have not yet
been put on trial:

On January 20, 2010, a
uniformed policeman was assaulted; he sustained a knife injury and his firearm
and ammunition were seized. An investigation by the judicial police revealed
that the assailants belonged to a terrorist network, linked to al Qaeda, that
was involved in recruiting and sending fighters to Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia,
and Algeria. After dismantling the 38-member cell, it was discovered that cell
members were preparing terrorist actions targeting security forces. They began
implementing their plans with the assault on the aforementioned policeman,
stripping him of his firearm. The firearm was seized … as is documented
in the search and seizure reports prepared in accordance with the law.

Based on this, members
of the terrorist cell … were arrested. Due to the exigencies of the
investigation, they were placed under garde à vue [pre-arraignment
detention] by the National Brigade of the Judicial Police on April 26, 2010,
under the supervision and oversight of the general prosecutor. They were
presented to the general prosecutor on May 6, 2010, after their detention had
been extended twice for 96 hours with authorization from the general
prosecutor, in accordance with article 66 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The general prosecutor
filed a request to question them regarding the acts attributed to them, and
they were referred to the investigating judge. After taking their preliminary
statement, the judge ordered them detained in Salé Civil Prison.

It is thus clear that
the arrest of the aforementioned parties was legal and that they were detained
in accordance with the provisions stipulated by law. They were then referred to
the competent judicial body within the specified time limit and in accordance
with the conditions mandated by law. Similarly, their status as detainees
affords them all the legal guarantees given to all arrested persons generally.

On the allegation that the security apparatus arrested
them without warrants and in violation of articles 146 and 608 of the Code of
Criminal Procedure.

As noted above, the
aforementioned parties were arrested by the National Brigade of the Judicial
Police and placed under garde à vue in accordance with the conditions
specified by the law, which does not require a written warrant for the arrest
of suspects. The law empowers the judicial police to ascertain that a crime has
taken place, gather evidence of it, and search for the perpetrators, pursuant
to article 18 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. In addition, the law has
specified the pertinent procedures in cases of crimes that are discovered while
they are being perpetrated (flagrant délit), among them the possibility
of placing persons under garde à vue if required by the exigencies of
the investigation. In such a case, the general prosecutor is informed and may
extend the period of garde à vue by written order. These procedures were
respected in this case. It cannot be argued that articles 146 and 608 of the
Code of Criminal Procedure were violated, as these are related to provisional
pretrial detention and not garde à vue, whose provisions are elaborated
in Articles 66 and 80 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

On the allegation that the concerned parties were
detained in a secret detention facility and their families were not informed of
their whereabouts, in violation of article 67 of the Code of Criminal
Procedure.

These allegations are
groundless since detention facilities are subject to the oversight and
supervision of the general prosecutor’s office. Moroccan law requires
suspects under garde à vue to be placed in stations of the judicial
police or facilities belonging to the Royal Gendarmerie, which are
subject to the oversight of the general prosecutor. The general
prosecutor’s office is also informed of every case of garde à vue
(articles 66, 67, and 79 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). The office
oversees the term and date of such detentions, and it follows the
investigations carried out by the judicial police, monitors its actions, and
visits the facilities in which suspects are held while under garde à
vue.

In every case, the
General Prosecutor’s office investigates the legality of the detention,
including the reasons for it, the existence of legal provisions allowing it,
and the correct application of the procedures accompanying and pursuant to it.

When a request is
submitted to extend garde à vue, the law states that the concerned party
must be brought before the General Prosecutor or Royal Crown Prosecutor, who
examines the condition of the detainee and gives him a hearing in order to
assess the validity of the stated reasons for extending the custody period
before making a decision. The judicial police are also required to document in
their records the hour and date at which garde à vue is imposed, as well
as the date the suspect is brought before the General Prosecutor’s
office. The General Prosecutor’s office also inspects these records.

In this case, the
families of the concerned parties were informed as soon as they were placed
under garde à vue in accordance with Article 67 of the Code of Criminal
Procedure, as is noted in the hearing report.

On the allegation that the concerned parties were not
permitted to avail themselves of their right to contact an attorney during the
investigation.

In articles 66 and 80
of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Moroccan legislator grants suspects the
right to contact an attorney starting from the first hour in which garde
à vue is extended. An attorney is also permitted to contact his client with
permission from the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The issue is one of a
right that an arrested person or his defense may avail himself of if he wishes.
The law does not compel an officer of the judicial police to bring about on his
own initiative the contact between the suspect and the lawyer. In contrast to
what your letter states, the General Prosecutor’s office permitted the
attorney of suspects Younes Zarli and Said Ziouani (accused in the same case)
to contact them after their custody was extended on May 4, 2010. The judicial
police filed a report that documents the visit of Mr. Fouad Zaamouti, on behalf
of Mr. Tawfiq Moussa’if, to his client Younus Zarli on May 5, 2010. The
allegation that the arrested persons were denied contact with their defense is
thus groundless and refuted by documents attesting to a visit from their
lawyers.

On the allegation that the concerned parties signed
their statements under duress and without reading them.

The law requires an
officer of the judicial police to prepare a report containing his observations,
statements received, or actions taken under his authority. The person who makes
a statement is required to read the statement or have it read to him by the
judicial police officer. This must be indicated in the report. The person then
signs the report, as does the judicial police officer, at the end of the
person’s statement and any additions, if any. If he is illiterate or
unable to sign, he places his fingerprint and this is indicated in the report
(article 24 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). He may also refuse to sign the
statement while citing cause or due to his inability to sign, in accordance with
article 67 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

In contrast to what
your letter states, the allegation that the concerned parties signed the
statements under duress and without reading them is groundless. Several reports
have been filed by the National Brigade of the Judicial Police on persons
involved in membership in terrorist cells or in other cases, where the
statements remained unsigned by the person who made them because he refused to
do so. This suggests that the statements would have been signed had some form
of coercion been used.

At the same time, it
must be noted that judicial police reports carry no evidentiary weight in
criminal proceedings and are made available to the court solely as a reference.
The court must base its rulings on evidence presented in the general court
session. Indeed, the confession itself is subject to the discretionary
authority of the judges. Any confession or evidence that is obtained by force
or coercion has no value, and an officer who obtains it is liable to criminal and
disciplinary action.

On the allegation that the physical integrity of the
concerned parties was infringed upon.

Articles 73 and 134 of
the Code of Criminal Procedure state that every public prosecutor and
investigating judge must grant requests for medical exams from suspects who
were placed under garde à vue or from their lawyers. The general
prosecutor and the investigating judge should also automatically order a
medical exam if they observe marks on the suspect that warrant the measure.

Based on the documents
in the case of the aforementioned parties, both those from the preliminary and
preparatory investigations, no suspect claimed he had been tortured or suffered
any sort of violence or harm, neither before the General prosecutor nor before
the investigating judge. Indeed, Younes Zarli’s lawyer visited him at the
judicial police station and made no observations, written or oral, to the
police or the General Prosecutor’s office, that would indicate that his
client had been tortured or mistreated, although the final paragraph of Article
80 of the Code of Criminal Procedure allows the lawyer to do so.

On the complaints filed by some suspects’
families to rights organizations regarding abduction and detention.

It should be noted that
since the counterterrorism law went into effect, this debate has again arisen.
Some parties exploit the circumstances in which persons are arrested in a legal
fashion to claim that they were forcibly disappeared or abducted. It must be
reiterated that persons are arrested in accordance with the law and with all
legal guarantees. Moreover, the authorities are required to investigate every
allegation of a disappearance and to pursue the responsible party regardless of
his position.

In this case, this
ministry has received correspondence from some associations claiming that
persons were abducted and disappeared. Upon investigation, it was found that
they had been arrested and placed under garde à vue for investigation
regarding their membership in extremist terrorist groups. Their families were
informed of this measure, and the suspects were referred to the competent
judicial authority within the prescribed time period and in accordance with the
conditions mandated in the Code of Criminal Procedure. They have been detained in
a known place regulated by the law and subject to the oversight of the General
Prosecutor’s office. The conditions of their detention also allow them to
avail themselves of all legal guarantees given to arrested persons in general.
Some were visited by their attorneys while in custody at the judicial police
station, as Younes Zarli, who was visited by his lawyer while in custody at a
time when some associations were alleging that he had disappeared.

Note

Regarding the
letter’s statement that if the foregoing allegations are true, they
represent a series of violations of Moroccan laws – laws that aim to
protect persons from torture and ill-treatment -- it must be noted here that
the state has a clear will to stop any extralegal act that harms the freedom
and security of individuals. This is illustrated by the number of judicial
proceedings initiated against law enforcement officials and the sentences
imposed on them. In addition, all complaints and grievances of possible abuses
are investigated by the General Prosecutor’s office, and medical exams of
victims are conducted when warranted. The General Prosecutor’s office
bases its decision for further actions on what these investigations reveal.

It is clear from the
organization’s letter that it relies on unofficial channels to collect
information without examining facts that would clarify certain falsehoods. It
is also clear that the organization has little confidence in the official
responses that it receives and is skeptical about information provided by the
Moroccan government regarding its counterterrorism measures, which are carried
out in accordance with the law and while respecting human rights, including the
right to a fair trial.

[2]“Moroccan PM pledges
'appropriate' response to human rights violations,” Agence France-Presse,
July 5, 2004. Prime Minister Driss Jettou on July 5, 2004 promised that his
government would take "appropriate" measures against
reported human rights violations, but denied abuses were systematic
and said several cases were the result of a robust crackdown
on terrorism…. While speaking of "several hundred" arrests
in the counterterrorism campaign, Jettou admitted that "from time to
time we register some cases – happily only a limited number – that
are treated overzealously and excessively."

[6]Salafia Jihadia connotes a
struggle (jihad), in this case an armed struggle, on behalf of a revivalist Sunni
Islam that venerates what its adherents consider to be the original faith and
practices of the Prophet Muhammad and his contemporaries (Salafism). Some
Salafists espouse violence as a legitimate means to spread their version of
Islam and to punish those who have chosen the “wrong” path.At least one observer has noted that Salafia Jihadia is not a
single organization, but “appears more to be a convenient label used by
the Moroccan regime to lump together various jihadist strands.” Alison
Pargeter, “The Islamist Movement in Morocco,” Terrorism Monitor,
vol. 3, no. 10, May 23, 2005, www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=483
(accessed August 8, 2010).

[9]Penal Code, No. 1.59.413
of 1962, article 218-2, as amended by Law 03-03, promulgated by dahir no.
1-03-140 of May 28, 2003 and published in the Official Bulletin of June 5,
2003.

[10]For
example, Mohamed al-Hurd, editor of the Oujda-based Ash-Sharq weekly, was given a three-year prison sentence in
2003, only to be pardoned and released by King Mohammed VI on January 7, 2004.
The charges against al-Hurd and two other editors were based on an article
reprinted on June 5, 2003, in Ash-Sharq
that criticized the Moroccan intelligence services for doing the "dirty
work" of the US Central Intelligence Agency. In 2007, the Rabat Court of
Appeals sentenced Rida Benotmane (see below) to four years in prison for online
posts attributed to him that praised those fighting the US occupation of Iraq
and criticized the king as being subservient to US foreign policy and against
Islam.

[11]Article 231(1) of the
Penal Code. For a comparison of article 231(1) and the Convention against
Torture, see Emma Reilly, “La criminalisation de la torture au Maroc:
Commentaires et recommandations,” Association for the Prevention of
Torture, February 2008, www.apt.ch/region/mena/CriminalisationMaroc.pdf
(accessed October 15, 2010).

[13]The Code of Penal
Procedure, in article 67, stipulates, “The judicial police officer shall
notify the family of the detainee as soon as a decision to place him/her under
custody is made, by any means and refer to that in the records.”

[14]
The UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of
Detention or Imprisonment, UN General Assembly, A/RES/43/173,

[15]Law No. 03-03 of 28 May 2003 on Combating Terrorism, article 66,
fourth paragraph: “When dealing with a terrorism offense, the period of
custody shall be ninety-six hours renewable twice for a period of ninety-six
hours each time upon written authorization of the Public Ministry.”

[20]
Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, adopted by the Eighth United Nations
Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Havana, 27
August to 7 September 1990, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.144/28/Rev.1 at 118 (1990).

[21]Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, UN Doc.
E/CN.4/1990/17, December 18, 1989, para. 272; see also U.N. Doc.
E/CN.4/1995/34, January 12, 1995, para. 926.

[22]Report of Special Rapporteur
on Torture Theo van Boven on his visit to Spain, submitted to the 60th session
of the Human Rights Commission on February 6, 2004, E/CN.4/2004/56/Add.2, para.
41 p. 13.

[23]Penal
Code, article 231 states that any public agent who, without a legitimate
motive, “uses violence or causes it to be used toward persons in or
during the exercise of their duties, shall be punished for these acts of
violence according to their severity.” The same article penalizes
“torture,” defined as “any act that causes sharp physical or
mental pain, when committed intentionally by a public agent, or at his
instigation or with his express or tacit consent, inflicted on a person in
order to intimidate or pressure him or to pressure a third party, in order to
obtain information or ‘indications’ or his confession, or in order
to punish him for an act that he or a third party committed or is suspected of
having committed.… ”

[24]Article 67 of the CPP
states that “the concerned person must affix to these statements his
signature or fingerprint; if he refuses or is unable to do so, this must be
indicated, along with an explanation of the reasons for this refusal or
inability.”

[25]For cases involving torture and ill-treatment of Sahrawi
independence and human rights activists arrested by Moroccan police, see Human
Rights Watch, Human Rights in Western Sahara
and in the Tindouf Refugee Camps, December 19, 2008,
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/77259/section/1.

[26]These lawyers include
Moustapha er-Ramid and Abdallah Zaâzaâ of Casablanca, and Abdelaziz
Nouaydi of Rabat. Nouaydi is a member of the advisory committee of Human Rights
Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division.

[29]See, e.g., Human Rights Watch, Morocco: Human
Rights at the Crossroads : “In cases we examined, police
held suspected Islamist militants in garde à vue detention beyond the
legally permitted limit before bringing them before a judge. The police then
falsified the recorded arrest date to make it appear that garde à vue
had stayed within the legal bounds.” Amnesty International also reported
on the falsification of arrest dates by the police in its 2004 report, “Torture
in the ‘Anti-Terrorism’ Campaign: The Case of Témara
Detention Center.”

[39]See for example, “Members of Dismantled Cell Visited Kenya
in Recent Months,” Al Jarida Al Oula,
April 28 2010, “More than 50 Individuals Questioned; Some Already
Convicted in Terrorism Cases,” Akhbar
al-Youm, April 28, 2010, “The leader of the Dismantled Cell is
a Frenchman of Moroccan Origin Who is Wanted,” Al Jarida Al Oula, April 29, 2010, and “The National
Brigade Exhibits Items Confiscated From a Terrorist Cell,” Akhbar al-Youm, April 29, 2010. Some of
the reports referred to the 38 men as 24 presumed terrorists linked to Al Qaeda
and 14 “accomplices.”

The Moroccan Association for Human Rights wrote letters
to the ministers of interior and justice and to the general director of
National Security on April 23, 2010, about the “abductions” of
Adnan Zakhbat, Abderrahim Lahjouli, Younes Zarli, and Abdelaziz Janah, and on
May 6, 2010 about the abduction of Mehdi Meliani, among others.

[71]The Investigating Judge
Chentouf’s report (l’ordre de
renvoi) states on pages 133-134 that Khouchiâ mentioned having
been the victim of police “violence.” This choice of words would
have been the way the judge summarized for the court clerk the
defendant’s testimony. The defendant’s own words may have been more
graphic.

[82]The most detailed critique of the state’s response to the
ERC’s recommendations can be found in Amnesty International,
Morocco/Western Sahara: “Broken Promises: The Equity and Reconciliation
Commission and its Follow-up,” AI Index: MDE 29/001/2010,
January 6, 2010, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE29/001/2010
(accessed October 18, 2010), especially chapters 7 and 8. The Moroccan
Association for Human Rights has issued statements criticizing the government
for having failed to implement most of the reforms recommended by the ERC,
including one issued on June 24, 2008. The Moroccan Forum for Truth and Justice
(Forum marocain pour la vérité et la justice, FMVJ) issued a
statement on September 4, 2010, regretting the “absence of any noteworthy
progress in implementing the recommendations of the IER … in the realm of
political, constitutional, and administrative reform toward the goal of
preventing a repeat of serious violations.”For background on the ERC, see
Human Rights Watch, Morocco’s Truth
Commission: Honoring Victims during an Uncertain Present, vol. 17,
no. 11(E), November 2005, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2005/11/27/moroccos-truth-commission.